WASHINGTON — Five weeks ago, President Obama stood before the Turkish legislature in Ankara and said many Americans had Muslims in their families or had lived in a Muslim-majority country. “I know,” he said, “because I am one of them.”

But will that exposure lead Mr. Obama to take a different tack from his predecessors in his dealings with Israel?

That question, which has captivated a wide spectrum of people, from America’s Israel lobby to Palestinian-Americans to the Muslim world, will take center stage on Monday, when Israel’s hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Obama since he became president.

... Mr. Obama’s past suggests why, four months into his presidency, the answer to the question remains elusive. His first book, “Dreams From My Father,” delves deeply into matters of race and nationality and the need to belong somewhere, issues that permeate the Arab-Israeli conflict. But in the book Mr. Obama does not address specifically how he views Israel and the plight of the Palestinians.

As a state senator in Chicago, Mr. Obama cultivated friendships with Arab-Americans, including Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian-American scholar and a critic of Israel. Mr. Obama and Mr. Khalidi had many dinners together, friends said, in which they discussed Palestinian issues. [KHALIDI BABYSAT FOR OBAMA'S DAUGHTERS!]

During the 1990s [WHEN NO ONE WAS LOOKING], Mr. Obama also attended tributes to Arab-Americans, where he often seemed “empathetic” to the cause of Palestinians, said Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian-American journalist in Chicago.

... “I think this president gets it, in terms of the suffering of the Palestinians,” [THAT'S CODE FOR BEING ANTI-ZIONIST] said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “He gets it, which is already light years ahead of the average elected American politician.”

... And Mr. Obama offered no public support for the appointment of Mr. Freeman to a top intelligence post in March after several congressional representatives and lobbyists complained that Mr. Freeman had an irrational hatred of Israel. Mr. Freeman angrily withdrew from consideration for the post.

But Mr. Freeman, in a telephone interview last week, said he still believed that Mr. Obama would go where his predecessors did not on Israel. Mr. Obama’s appointment of Gen. James L. Jones as his national security adviser — a man who has worked with Palestinians and Israelis to try to open up movement for Palestinians on the ground and who has sometimes irritated Israeli military officials — could foreshadow friction between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, several Middle East experts said.

The same is true for the appointment of George J. Mitchell as Mr. Obama’s special envoy to the region; Mr. Mitchell, who helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland, has already hinted privately that the administration may have to look for ways to include Hamas, in some fashion, in a unity Palestinian government.

... “You can’t really tell anything by what happened to me and the fact that he didn’t step forward to take on the skunks,” he said, referring to his own appointment controversy and Mr. Obama’s silence amid critics’ attacks. “The first nine months, Nixon was absolutely horrible on China. In retrospect, it was clear that he had every intention to charge ahead, but he was picking his moment. He didn’t want to have the fight before he had to have the fight.”

“I sense that Obama is picking his moment,” Mr. Freeman said.

WHEN IT COMES TO PRO-ARAB POLITICIANS, FREEMAN KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT: HIS THINK TANK WAS PRIMARILY FUNDED BY THE SAUDI KING - YOU REMEMBER WHO THAT IS, DON'T YOU!?

HE'S THE MUSLIM MAN WHO OBAMA BOWED DOWN TO.

I PREDICT THAT OBAMA WILL PUBLICLY EMBRACE THE SAUDI KING'S SO-CALLED "PEACE PLAN".

OBAMA WILL TRY TO DRESS UP HIS SUPPORT FOR THE ARABS AS "EVEN-HANDEDNESS" - (AS IF IT WAS MORAL TO TREAT JIHADOTERRORISTS THE SAME AS ISRAELIS. WELL... IT IS FOR ANTI-SEMITES!)

Already it has done plenty. It pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, soon found itself facing 10,000 terrorist rockets and mortars, and in 2006 was forced into war with Hezbollah. In 2000, Israel offered the most generous terms imaginable to create a Palestinian state, and in return got a suicide-bomb campaign aimed at civilians. In 2005, Israel shut down all settlements in the Gaza Strip and pulled out, only to be confronted with a Hamas terrorist statelet and more warfare.

Where are bold moves by the Arabs? They point to the "Saudi peace initiative." That offers peace if Israel gives up everything it won in the 1967 defensive, existential war -- and more. It demands "a right of return" for Palestinians who fled their homes, often at the urging of invading Arab armies, in 1948. That demand includes descendants of the refugees -- millions of people who weren't born in 1948. Only last week, the Arab states reaffirmed that demand.

The Palestinians are the only people to have been accorded refugee status for six decades and counting. Imagine if Germany declared a right to return for millions of its citizens to the provinces of East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia it lost in World War II.

Biden is telling Israel supporters things they don't want to hear. Obama and Biden should do the same for Palestinian supporters. A good place to start would be telling them to acknowledge the realities of the world and abandon the "right of return." Don't expect to hear that June 4.

Swedish health authorities have ruled that gender-based abortion is not illegal according to current law and can not therefore be stopped, according to a report by Sveriges Television.

The Local reported in February that a woman from Eskilstuna in southern Sweden had twice had abortions after finding out the gender of the child.

The woman, who already had two daughters, requested an amniocentesis in order to allay concerns about possible chromosome abnormalities. At the same time, she also asked to know the foetus's gender.

Doctors at Mälaren Hospital expressed concern and asked Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) to draw up guidelines on how to handle requests in the future in which they "feel pressured to examine the foetus’s gender" without having a medically compelling reason to do so.

The board has now responded that such requests and thus abortions can not be refused and that it is not possible to deny a woman an abortion up to the 18th week of pregnancy, even if the foetus's gender is the basis for the request.

THIS IS NO LONGER LEGAL IN CHINA, BUT IT'S NOW LEGAL IN SWEDEN.

DISGUSTING.

THE LEFT TODAY ENABLES MOTHERS TO MURDER THEIR BABIES. IN THE WOMB - OR OUT.

Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the Gospel with Muslims, according to a video I discovered today.

While I’ve exceeded the minimum reproduction requirement — 2.11 children minimum per family — mentioned in the video as necessary for sustaining Western culture, I still have a lot to do when it comes to witnessing to Muslims.

Postmodern Leftists are principally anti-West. They are anti-American and anti-Israel because the USA is the leader of the West, and they see Israel as an artificial outpost of the West.

There are five reasons why the Postmodern Left hates the West and wants it brought down a notch - at the very least, if not revolutionarily changed beyond recognition.

The Postmodern Left sees the West as the root of all of humanity's problems.

1 - The Left sees the West as the cause of Third World Poverty:

They apparently feel that humans are naturally born into a prosperous world which affords a long life and high living standards, because they fail to see that the West has high living standards and that westerners have long lives because we are industrious, industrialized, capitalistic with rule of law, and free markets. Societies which don't have these things are poor because they are under-developed. Comparing North Korea to South Korea give incontrovertible proof: the South is rich "because of Western hegemony"; the North is poor without it. They are, IOW, just plain wrong. The Third World is poor because they are un-industrialized, have no free-markets, no rule of law and little capitalism.

The postmodern left hasn't a clue that prosperity is created or about how prosperity is created. They think prosperity is a given - that all you need to do is redistribute it. Our current global recession proves this is wrong: wealth has to be created and compounded and reinvested everyday or markets go down. This is why even Obama realizes he can't raise taxes now - because it would retard growth and prolong the recession. Well, if taxes hurt growth in a recession they can't be good - PERIOD. Since the world's population is growing, and much of it is poor, we need a lot more growth all the time. That means lowering taxes is always a good thing to do. Incentivizing an rewarding industriousness is always good, and redistribution schemes always bad.

2 - The Left sees the West as the cause of global-warming and the impending climate change calamity:

The Left feels that AGW - if left unchecked - will eventually destroy the world's economy and make human life unbearable - if not, kill all life on Earth.

Too bad for them that despite ever-increasing levels of man-made atmospheric CO2 the earth is no longer warming. IOW: AGW= BS. And again, the left is just plain wrong.

3 - The Left sees the West - and Judeo-Christian Civilization - as the cause of most of history's genocide:

But, if you add up all the people killed by the West since Rome and Athens were founded over the last 21 centuries it's less than those killed by the Left - in its various forms - just in the 20Th Century. Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Kim et al killed more people in the 20th Century than all the wars in the West which preceded them.

And Islam killed even more than the Left - killing around 270 million since Mohamed invented his martial creed. So... the Left is wrong again, wrong to deride the West.

4 - The Left sees the West as an invader and a bully in the Middle East, and the Middle East's Arab-Israeli conflict as the crux of the current global war:

The Left sees Israel as a colonial outpost of European/Western capitalism. They are wrong again. Arabs and Islam are the true invaders. The Crusades were a counter-offensive, an effort to regain land stolen by the Arabs. Fore the last 2000 years, Jews have lived in the Holy Land continuously, and as recently as the 19Th Century - as contemporaneous reports all indicate - Jewish settlers outnumbered Arabs nomads in the Holy Land. The Left also virtually ignores global jihad in the Philippines, Thailand, Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Kashmir and elsewhere - places where Muslim-anti-Muslim violence has actually claimed more lives than all the Arab-Israeli wars combined.

The Left refuses to admit that the Arab-Israeli conflict is but one mere front in global jihad because it undermines their anti-colonialism-template.

5 - The Left sees the West and Judeo-Christian Civilization as the root of unnecessary sexual repression:

The Left feels that Freud was right, that all humans are bi-sexual and poly-amorous, and that any and all laws and traditions which seek to channel or limit humanity's extremely malleable, changeable and elusive sexuality is tyrannical and must be overthrown.

The Left also sees the institutions which have grown out of these "repressive traditions" as competing with state and government institutions which might be both more permissive - (if the state were controlled by postmodernists) - and more invasive and controlling in other arenas, like the economy, health-care, retirement, etc.

IOW, the Left want to get these traditional institutions out-of-the-way so that there is room for statist bureaucracies to take over. Hence the Gramscian Agenda - the Culture Wars.

The Left prefers single-mothers on welfare to wed mothers in Church every Sunday.

These five points are the five fingers of the postmodern leftist fist - the fist they pound into our faces everyday, in every medium, on every front - everyday.

And these are the reasons why - at the very least - the :eft runs interference for our enemies in the present global war, WW4. (The Cold War was WW3.)

YES: In this war, the postmodern left is at the very least the enemy's Fifth Column.

The Left is allied to global jihad because they feel that global jihad will be able to take the West down a notch, and they feel that once the West - and Judeo-Christian traditions and institutions - are demolished that they'll be able to step into the vacuum and establish their benevolent statist bureaucracy.

THIS IS WHY - IF WE WANT OUR CIVILIZATION TO PERSIST - WE MUST FIGHT THE LEFT AS ARDENTLY AS WE FIGHT GLOBAL JIHAD.

Israel would be crazy to launch a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a magazine interview released on Saturday.

"It would be completely insane to attack Iran," ElBaradei told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. "That would turn the region into one big fireball, and the Iranians would immediately start building the bomb - and they could count on the support of the entire Islamic world."

... The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog added that Iran should engage with the United States and negotiate over the program.

U.S. President Barack Obama is actively seeking to engage Iran on a series of issues, from its nuclear program to Afghanistan.

"I advise my Iranian negotiating partners: grasp the hand that Obama is extending to you," the UN official said.

*******BY PREEMPTIVELY ATTACKING ISRAEL AND CALLING IT INSANE FOR EVEN CONSIDERING AN ATTACK ON IRAN, EL BARADEI IS ATTEMPTING TO NEUTRALIZE THE STICK (IN THE CARROT'N STICK METHOD OF NEGOTIATING) AND IS THEREBY ACTUALLY UNDERMINING POTENTIAL NEGOTIATIONS.

WHAT THE IAEA, THE UNSC AND THE USA SHOULD BE SAYING TO IRAN IS THIS: "THE WORLD WILL BACK - IF NOT AID - ISRAEL IN A PREEMPTIVE ATTACK; THEREFORE ANY ATTEMPT TO CONTINUE IS A WASTE."

THIS APPROACH WOULD MAKE AN ATTACK LESS LIKELY BY MAKING COOPERATION MORE LIKELY.

THE EFFECT OF EL BARADEI'S APPROACH IS TO ACTUALLY FOSTER IRAN'S PROGRAM.

IMHO: THIS IS NO ACCIDENT OR SIDE-EFFECT OF A BASIC PREDILECTION FOR APPEASEMENT; IT IS A RESULT OF PRO-ISLAM BIAS.

REMEMBER: EL BARADEI DID NOT KNOW ABOUT PAKISTAN'S PROGRAM OR LIBYA'S -- TWO OTHER CLANDESTINE MUSLIM NUKE PROGRAM'S.

COINCIDENCE?

HARDLY. EL BARADEI IS A MUSLIM AND IS BIASED IN THEIR FAVOR.

AND DON'T FORGET: PUTIN'S TYRANNICAL RUSSIA IS THE MAJOR BACKER OF IRAN'S PROGRAM, ITS MISSILE DEFENSE, (AND OF DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY ARMING IRAN'S STOOGES: SYRIA; HAMAS; AND HIZBALLAH).

THEREFORE - FOR AIDING IRAN - WE SHOULD THREATEN SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA.

BOTTOM-LINE:

THE THREAT FROM IRAN IS INFINITELY MORE REAL AND MORE PROXIMATE THAN "MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING".

IT WOULD BE MORE THAN NICE - IT WOULD BE SANE - IF THE UN AND OBAMA TREATED IT THAT WAY.

SO FAR... ONLY ISRAEL IS.

BY SEEKING TO TALK TO AND APPEASE IRAN, EL BARADEI AND OBAMA ARE AIDING IRAN.THEY ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

Late to arrive in the Northeast, the foreclosure crisis has swept through the New York region at an explosive pace in the past two years, destroying billions of dollars in housing wealth, according to a New York Times analysis of foreclosures filed since 2005 and federal mortgage data.

It now touches every corner of the region, from estates along the Connecticut Gold Coast to the suburban tracts of Long Island, where 6 percent of all mortgages are at least 90 days delinquent, the point at which foreclosure proceedings usually begin.

But the storm has fallen with a special ferocity on black and Latino homeowners, the analysis shows. Defaults occur three times as often in mostly minority census tracts as in mostly white ones. Eighty-five percent of the worst-hit neighborhoods — where the default rate is at least double the regional average — have a majority of black and Latino homeowners.

... That pattern plays out across the nation. A study released this week by the Pew Research Center also shows foreclosure taking the heaviest toll on counties that have black and Latino majorities, with the New York region among the badly hit.

PEOPLE GET FORECLOSED ON WHEN THEY CAN'T PAY BACK THE MORTGAGE THEY SIGNED FOR ON THE DOTTED LINE.

THAT'S AIN'T MY FAULT - OR YOURS.

WE SHOULDN'T BEAR THE COST.

WE ARE BEARING THE COST BECAUSE MOST OF THESE FORECLOSED LOANS WERE THE RESULT OF THE GOVERNMENT INTERFERING WITH THE MORTGAGE INDUSTRY - THROUGH THE CRA AND FANNIE MAE AND FREDDIE MAC - AND THEIR LIBERAL POLICIES.

THE IMPLICIT GOVERNMENT GUARANTEE OF THE GSE'S LED THE RATING COMPANIES RATING DERIVATIVES BASED ON BUNDLED MORTGAGES TO OVER-RATE THEM, AND THIS LED THESE VERY HIGH RISK DERIVATIVES TO BE SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD'S BANKING SYSTEM.

WHEN THE BUBBLE THIS CREATED INEVITABLY BURST, THAT RISK WAS EXPOSED.

IT WAS NOT GREED THAT CREATED THE BUBBLE.

IT WAS THE GOVERNMENT AND "DO-GOODER" LIBERAL/SOCIALIST POLICIES.

THE SOLUTION IS NOT MORE GOVERNMENT - IT IS LESS: LOWER TAXES; LESS INTERFERENCE IN THE MARKETS.

Friday, May 15, 2009

The Maldives is an archipelago of 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean, with an average elevation of four feet. Even a slight rise in global sea levels, which many scientists predict will occur by the end of this century, could submerge most of the Maldives.

Last November, when Nasheed proposed moving all 300,000 Maldivians to safer territory, he named India, Sri Lanka and Australia as possible destinations and described a plan that would use tourism revenues from the present to establish a sovereign wealth fund with which he could buy a new country — or at least part of one — in the future. “We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own, and so we have to buy land elsewhere,” Nasheed said in November.

When the movie ended, Nasheed approached a microphone stand in front of a giant house palm. He has a jockey’s physique, and the fronds of the palm arched over his shoulder. His wonder-boy demeanor might seem naïve, but he spent almost 20 years opposing a dictator and enduring torture; few doubt his fortitude.The audience in the ballroom listened closely when Nasheed declared that it was time to act. “What we need to do is nothing short of decarbonizing the entire global economy,” he said, his high voice cracking. “If man can walk on the moon, we can unite to defeat our common carbon enemy.” Nasheed didn’t use notes for his speech; aides say he never does.

“And so today,” he continued, “I announce that the Maldives will become the first carbon-neutral country in the world.”

MOVING WHOLE POPULATIONS & COUNTRIES!? BECOMING "CARBON NEUTRAL" ?!

SEROUSLY, THIS CRAP IS INSANE.

CORAL REEFS COME AND GO.

SHEESH: IN GEOLOGICAL TERMS, FREAKIN' CONTINENTS COME AND GO.

AND THE CLIMATE CHANGES.

SEA LEVEL CHANGES.

IT'S NATURAL.

CHANGE IS NATURAL.

CHANGE: WHY, IN POLITICS, DOES THE LEFT THINK IT'S GOOD, BUT IN NATURE IT'S BAD!?

ECO-MUTSIES ARE UNDER THE MISAPPREHENSION THAT NATURE IS STATIC AND PRISTINE AND WOULD REMAIN SO WERE IT NOT FOR MAN.

ACTUALLY, THE WORLD IS A HOSTILE PLACE; IT'S TOUGH TO FEED NATION WITHOUT CAPITALISM, INDUSTRIALISM AND A FREE MARKET.

JUST ASK THE CHICOMS.

THE HISTORY OF MANKIND IS THE HISTORY OF A LONG SLOW DIFFICULT CRAWL FROM POVERTY, STARVATION, DISEASE TO WEALTH, ABUNDANCE AND HEALTH.

WE CAN LOSE IT ALL IF WE DO WHAT THE SOCIALISTS AND ECON-NUTSIES WANT US TO DO: RAISE TAXES; CURB INDUSTRIALISM AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, AND BURN LESS CARBON.

Plans for a tunnel linking Bolivia to the Pacific Ocean have been unveiled by three architects who say it could put an end to a 130 year-old dispute between the landlocked country and its neighbour, Chile.

The three Chilean architects claim the tunnel would allow Bolivia to regain access to the sea since it was defeated by Chile in the Pacific War in 1879.

This has been one of Bolivia's main demands for years, and is still strongly voiced by current President Evo Morales.

The 150km (93 miles) tunnel would run from the Bolivian border to an artificial island created in the Pacific Ocean from earth dug to build the tunnel.

From an elated Reuters: Obama names New York health chief to head CDCPresident Barack Obama on Friday named a public health activist who made New York the first U.S. city to ban smoking in restaurants to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency charged with protecting Americans from illnesses ranging from heart disease to new flu strains.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, 48, New York’s top health official since January 2002, also made the city the country’s first to ban the use of trans fats, which clog arteries and raise the risk of heart disease, from food prepared in restaurants…

The Obama administration’s total disregard of Israel’s obvious interest in keeping the U.N. on the sidelines was striking.

Instead of reiterating the obvious — that peace will not come if bigots and autocrats are permitted to ram an international “solution” down the throat of the only democracy at the table — Rice told the Council: “The United States cannot be left to do all the heavy lifting by itself, and other countries . . . must do all that they can to shore up our common efforts.”

Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.

The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and then-Vice President Cheney's office kept close tabs on the questioning.

"Its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at preempting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al Qaeda," Wilkerson wrote in The Washington Note, an online political journal.

Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel, said his accusation is based on information from current and former officials. He said he has been "relentlessly digging" since 2004, when Powell asked him to look into the scandal surrounding the treatment of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

"I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," he told CNN.

REPEAT: "I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," he told CNN.

REPEAT: "I couldn't walk into a courtroom and prove this to anybody, but I'm pretty sure it's fairly accurate," he told CNN.

HE'S "PRETTY SURE" - AND THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM TO SMEAR THE FORMERPOTUS AND VPOTUS AND OUR EFFORTS AT GITMO.

WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP.

DID POWELL HAVE A SINGLE KEY AIDE WHO WAS LOYAL TO BUSH!??! ARMITAGE WAS THE PLAME-NOVAK LEAKER. AND WILKERSON!?!? HE'S TOTAL EFFIN' SCUM.

Mary Ann Glendon, an anti-abortion scholar and Harvard University law professor, wrote in a letter Monday to the Rev. John Jenkins, the university president, that giving Obama an honorary degree violates the U.S. bishops’ 2004 statement that Roman Catholic institutions shouldn’t honor people whose actions conflict with the church’s moral principles.

WASHINGTON — Hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that President Obama had substantially overstated their promise earlier this week to reduce the growth of health spending.

Mr. Obama invited health industry leaders to the White House on Monday to trumpet their cost-control commitments. But three days later, confusion swirled in Washington as the companies’ trade associations raced to tamp down angst among members around the country.

After meeting with six major health care organizations, Mr. Obama hailed their cost-cutting promise as historic.

“These groups are voluntarily coming together to make an unprecedented commitment,” Mr. Obama said. “Over the next 10 years, from 2010 to 2019, they are pledging to cut the rate of growth of national health care spending by 1.5 percentage points each year — an amount that’s equal to over $2 trillion.”

Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts.

OBAMA IS PINKO, TWO-BIT CHICAGO MACHINE THUG AND A LYING A PIECE OF CRAP.

HE WOULDN'T KNOW THE TUTH IF IT BIT HIM ON HIS BLACK & WHITE ASS.

LEFT UNSTOPPED, OBAMA WILL DESTROY THE USA - AND WITH IT THE FREE WORLD.

The JTA reports that a $116 million lawsuit against the PLO has been upheld:

(JTA) -- A U.S. judge would not rescind his decision ordering the PLO to pay $116 million to the family of victims of a terrorist attack.

Ronald Lagueux, a federal judge in Providence, R.I., said Wednesday that the Palestine Liberation Organization was liable because of its refusal during the trial early in this decade to mount a defense; PLO leader Yasser Arafat refused to recognize U.S. sovereignty in the matter.

Yaron Ungar, a U.S. citizen, and his wife Efrat were shot dead as they traveled with their infant son near Beit Shemesh, a town near Jerusalem that also adjoins the West Bank.

In recent filings, the PLO blamed Hamas for the attack, saying it sought to sabotage Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The lawsuit targeted Hamas and the PLO, saying that the PLO was responsible as well because it gave the terrorists safe harbor. Hamas has never contested the suit.

It was not clear if the PLO planned an appeal.

But they could. Don't be surprised if they'll appeal all the way to Obama if that's what it takes for them not to pay the money they owe.

On top of the millions of jobs already lost in America since the beginning of this recession, another 190,000 jobs are now in jeopardy.

Yesterday, Chrysler announced the termination of nearly twenty-five percent of the company's dealer-franchises. Today comes the news that GM will drop many dealers as well:

...The ailing GM and Chrysler say they have far too many dealers. Chrysler announced on Thursday that it is cutting 789 of its 3,181 dealers, but Friday may be far worse: GM is scheduled to begin notifying more than 1,000 dealers that they are being dropped.

As sensible as the cuts might seem, most of the dealers are small businesses, and many...have deep roots in the community. They typically employ about 50 people, and some are substantial donors to local causes. Their potential loss is sending ripples of concern through many towns....

[...]

The National Automobile Dealers Association has argued that the automakers should not simply cut stores. Instead, they argue that the companies should allow market forces to cull their ranks.

Instead, the automakers are reviewing each of the dealerships, examining their market, sales and financial wherewithal, and deciding which should stay or go.

This article in the Washington Post relates some of the impact on family-owned car dealerships in the Washington, D.C., area:

In 1915, at the dawn of the automobile era, Lewis Reed opened a Dodge dealership on Rockville Pike.

Yesterday his grandsons gathered startled employees together to tell them that the firm's 94-year run as a Chrysler-Dodge franchise was coming to an end. Chrysler was dumping them.

"It's not a good feeling," said Richard L. Gartner, one of Reed's grandsons, and the president of Reed Brothers Dodge.

Just after meeting to inform employees about 3 p.m. yesterday, he looked fazed, his face flushed.

"We have been with Chrysler for a very long time," he said, pausing. "We were kind of looking forward to a 100-year anniversary."

Similar stories played out all over America yesterday and will be repeated today....

VIENNA – Roxana Saberi, the American journalist freed after some four months in an Iranian prison on spying charges, left the country and flew to the Austrian capital with her parents early Friday.

After landing at Vienna's airport, Saberi said she planned to spend a few days in the city to recover from her ordeal.

"I came to Vienna because I heard it was a calm and relaxing place," Saberi said. "I know you have many questions but I need some more time to think about what happened to me over the past couple of days."

Her father, Reza Saberi, said they were staying with a friend in Austria. The family was accompanied by an unidentified man.

Saberi, poised and smiling, thanked all those who supported her during her ordeal — including Austria's ambassador to Iran and his family, whom she described as "very helpful."

"Both journalists and non-journalists around the world, I've been hearing, supported me very much and it was very moving for me to hear this," Saberi said.

Saberi, referring to several statements made about her case over the past few days, stressed she was the only one who knew what really happened.

"Nobody knows about it as well as I do and I will talk about it more in the future, I hope, but I am not prepared at this time," she said.

Saberi did not specify how long she planned to stay in Austria, saying only: "We're going to stay here for at least a few days and then go on to the United States."

She said it was still unclear if she would also travel to France, where a film she co-scripted premiered at the Cannes Film festival on Thursday. The film's director is Saberi's partner.

The 32-year-old journalist, who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and moved to Iran six years ago, was arrested in late January and was convicted of spying for the United States in a closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted only 15 minutes.

Saberi's mother, Akiko, also thanked all those who supported her daughter over the past few months.

"We're just so happy to be here," she said.

She was freed on Monday and reunited with her parents, who had come to Iran to seek her release, after an appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended sentence.

The United States had said the charges against Saberi were baseless and repeatedly demanded her release. The case against her had become an obstacle to President Barack Obama's attempts at dialogue with the top U.S. adversary in the Middle East.

At one point, Saberi held a hunger strike to protest her imprisonment, but she ended it after two weeks when her parents, visiting her in prison, asked her to stop because her health was weakening.

Saberi had worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

After her arrest, Iranian authorities initially accused her of working without press credentials, but later leveled the far more serious charge of spying. Iran released few details about the allegations that she passed intelligence to the U.S.

Even now that she's free though, Iran is still very dangerous, and should not be underestimated. Remember, Iran's got the nuclear tech, and it's tragic that Obama is opposing Israel's right to defend itself and demanding that Israel not take action without "coordinating" with him.

A 25 year old Norwegian bartender at Cafe Rust in Copenhagen was struck in the head by 2 glasses hurled by a disgruntled customer. Andreas Bull-Gundersen went to the emergency room at Rigshospitalet. Below is the ensuing conversation according to friends who accompanied him:

Anders went home and died the next day of a brain hemorrhage. Had Anders sought help at a private health facility, they would have gladly examined him - maybe even done a MRI scan if he was well insured! And Anders would probably be alive today.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The national Vice Chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) - a man named Joseph M... Schwartz - published an article last December where he laid out a set of very clear policy prescriptions for the incoming Obama Administration.

... it’s eerily illuminating to go through the full list of policy recommendations for Obama made by Schwartz in his article (and even more so given that he published this prior to the Inauguration):

1. Act “boldly and quickly”, ignoring the separation of powers and checks and balances defined by the Constitution. Grade: A2. Fund massive investments in green technology. Grade: A

3. Pass a massive stimulus package of at least $700B which includes major funding for job training. Grade: A/A4. Implement a major anti-foreclosure program. Grade: A

5. Fund preschool education and employment programs for inner city youth. Grade: A6. Demand equity shares in the banks and other corporations that are bailed out by the Treasury. Grade: A7. Support the inclusion of a government-run insurance plan with healthcare reform initiative. Grade: A8. Reverse Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthy. Grade: A

10. Military: end the war in Iraq, reduce number of bases abroad by 1/3, kill the building of next generation fighter planes, and end missile-defense programs. Grade: C11. Require that consumer, worker, and government representatives be added to the board of directors of corporations receiving government aid. Grade: A-12. Use whatever political capital is necessary to ensure passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Grade: B+

Bottom-line: Obama is a socialist.

He didn't run as one.

He denied it.

He lied.

He didn't run as one. He didn't win as one. He won because he outspent spent McCain 8-to-1 and there was a stock market crash.

Obama has no mandate for what he's trying to do.

He has a pliant Congress and and sycophantic MSM.

Apparently, that's enough.

Obama is brown on the outside; brown & white on the inside; and red in his core: he's the tartufo president.

THE overnight minimum temperature plunged to 6C this morning, marking Perth's coldest April night for two years.The mercury plunged to a chilly 6C at 4.10 this morning after Perth recorded the coldest day this year yesterday with a maximum temperature of 20.9C.

It was the coolest night since 5 October 2008 when the temperature dropped to just 3.4C, according to the WA Bureau of Meteorology climate information officer John Relf (JR).

MELBOURNE has shivered through its coldest April morning in over 50 years, with temperatures dropping below freezing in some suburbs.

Melbourne recorded a low of 2.9C just before 7am, the equal lowest April minimum temperature since 1957, while a number of suburbs had temperatures of between 0C and 2C.

In Coldstream, in Melbourne’s outer east, the mercury dropped to -2.7C, while Mt Hotham had the morning’s lowest temperature of 4.4C – a day after the mountain recorded the lowest ever April minimum temperature of -8.2C.

The Obama administration's new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting "a war on drugs," a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

... Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs.

In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority.

The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates.

Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would divert drug defendants to treatment programs.

Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city's 2003 initiative on police priorities.

His officers, however, say drug enforcement -- especially for pot crimes -- took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O'Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O'Neill said.

"The average rank-and-file officer is saying, 'He can't control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?' " Mr. O'Neill said.

THIS IS SIMPLY ANOTHER FORM OF LEFT-WING APPEASEMENT - THIS TIME OF ADDICTS AND DEALERS.

Our guest for the full hour is Frank Salvato. Excerpt from his bio: Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us and serves as the vice president and executive director of Basics Project. He is a contributing writer for GOPUSA, CNS News, ChronWatch, Opinion Editorials, Men's News Daily, Canada Free Press, American Daily, The American Chronicle and The North Carolina Conservative.... Read the rest of the bio HERE. CLICK HERE to read some of Mr. Salvato's articles.

We will discuss with Mr. Salvato why the Obama administration has appointed scores of unqualified individuals to important posts in the government.

Listen to the May 15, 2009 edition of The Gathering Storm Radio Show, live or later, by CLICKING HERE.

President Barack Obama has put America into the hands of “environmental radicals.” It is only a matter of time before “his vast popularity runs aground on his energy policies,” according to Jon Basil Utley, writing in Reason magazine.

“In the name of saving the planet from global warming, [Obama] has delayed new oil drilling, an action that will have major political repercussions once the world economy recovers. Instead of using some of the stimulus billions to produce more gas and oil, Obama’s appointees dream of ‘renewable’ energy derived from corn, wind, sunshine, and even grass,” Mr. Utley says in his article.

Read more about this writer's reasonable -- pun intended -- point of view here.

Sniff the air in Barcelona or Madrid, scientists say, and you'll inhale not only carbon dioxide but possibly cocaine too.

Pollution plagues Spanish cities, but a new study reports the air in those two is also laced with drugs - notably cocaine.

The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute, said on its Web site it also found traces of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid, a relative of LSD, wafting through those cities.

Despite evidence from polls pointing to a decline in public support for the EU, the government plan to go ahead with plans for a euro currency referendum Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has given a 2011 deadline for having a...

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has given a 2011 deadline for having a referendum concerning possible adoption of the euro currency.

Rasmussen made the announcement yesterday at his weekly press conference. But he added there were conditions that needed to be fulfilled in order to achieve that goal, including the resolution of problems surrounding the proposed introduction of a constitution covering EU member states.

‘We also need strong parliamentary support for the vote, and we don’t have that right now,’ said Rasmussen.

A new Jyllands-Posten/Rambøll poll showed that general support for the EU is declining in Denmark. This includes a majority wanting to retain the country’s current opt-outs - in place since the Edinburgh Agreement since 1993 - of which the euro is one.

Denmark’s other EU opt-outs, concerning common defence, justice and citizenship, are also no closer to being waived, according to the poll.

THE WISE DANES MIGHT JUST SAVE EUROPE FRP, BECOMING THE EUSSR - (AS THE IRISH DID FOR A WHILE).

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

GOD SUCKS.EVOLUTION.RON PAUL SUCKS.EVOLUTION.EVERYONE TO THE RIGHT OF GUILIANI SUCKS.EVOLUTION.GOD STILL SUCKS.BICYCLES.EVOLUTION.GUITARS.EVOLUTION.LIZARDS.EVOLUTION.THE DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS.EVOLUTION.'BICYCLES.EVOLUTION.GOD SUCKS.BELIEVERS ARE MORONS.EVOLUTION.EVERYONE TO THE RIGHT OF GUILIANI SUCKS.GUITARS.BICYCLES.RON PAUL SUCKS.

ONE in three NHS patients has to endure the indignity of mixed-sex wards and thousands of the most vulnerable are being left to starve, according to a damning report.

Figures also showed that nearly a third of patients had to share a bathroom, toilet and shower area with the opposite sex.

This latest indictment of the state of the NHS showed no improvements on the previous year and left in tatters Government pledges to ensure single-sex wards.

...Health campaigners have repeatedly condemned the Government for failing to scrap mixed-sex wards.

Labour promised to abolish them when it came to power in 1997 following Tony Blair’s condemnation of them as Leader of the Opposition.

... Despite Government and nursing campaigns demanding change, 18 per cent of patients are still being left without any help at mealtimes – the same figure as in 2002.

...This comes as statistics showed that the number of ­people going hungry in NHS ­hospitals has almost doubled since 1997 when Labour came to power – with as many as 140,000 patients leaving hospital malnourished.

WE MUST NOT LET OBAMA AND THE "PROGRESSIVES" DESTROY OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM AND TURN IT INTO THE NHS.

Five years ago, people around the world were sickened by photographs that surfaced showing U.S. troops abusing Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Act I resulted in an avalanche of congressional hearings, 15 Pentagon probes and courts-martial. More than 400 U.S. troops — but no senior officials — went to jail or were otherwise punished. Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act to try to prevent future atrocities.

But now a new batch of photographs, perhaps hundreds of images, of prisoners being abused is about to be made public. It comes at a time when the debate over prisoner mistreatment is still roiling America's political and public conscience. The new photographs are being made public in a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union.

BUT OBAMA HAS REVERSED HIMSELF, AND NOW SUPPORTS KEEPING THE PHOTOS SECRET:

President Barack Obama declared Wednesday he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversing his position out of concern the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House had said last month it would not oppose the release of dozens of photos from military investigations of alleged misconduct. But American commanders in the war zones have expressed deep concern about fresh damage the photos might do, especially as the U.S. tries to wind down the Iraq war and step up operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

A bio weapon wouldn't work because the faster and deadlier a bio-agent is the more likely it is to burn-out before infecting and killing the entire West.

A chem weapon would be impossible to disseminate in a way that would kill everyone in the West.

Nuke explosions make huge areas uninhabitable and they destroy valuable infrastructure. Nuke poisons are tough to spread over an area wide enough in amounts big enough to be lethal.

The ONLY way enemies of the West could hope to destroy the West is by CULTURAL attack - and this is precisely what the postmodern left and the "creeping sharia" jihadists are doing.

Patiently undermining our economy, our national defense, our ability to exploit the natural bounty around us, undermining ancient institutions and and values - like marriage, and inculcating a desire to be childless. And undermining our will to defend our civilization.